Why not Fido?
If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, why shouldn’t the apple of someone’s eye be the subject of a portrait? Frankfort artist John Tylk is happy to be the Gainsborough of the fur-and-feather set.
“I don’t mind being called the animal artist, but I also do portraits of people and their homes, as well as landscapes and still lifes,” Tylk says.
He divides his work time between his home studio and an easel at the Trolley Barn, a mini-mall at 11 S. White St. in Frankfort, where he pulls in an audience eager to just see how it’s done. In the style of the best sidewalk artists, he brings his most visually arresting and advanced work to his public studio.
“Like the Julia Child school of cooking, I bring pieces that are ready to be served up,” he says as he highlights the lush greenery that serves as a background for a panda bear, a piece that will be included in an upcoming art show at Triton College in River Grove.
In explaining the appeal of his work he says modestly, “Animals attract a lot of attention.” His clients and admirers, however, agree that it is not the subject matter but the lifelike quality of Tylk’s work that draws attention.
“Portraits have to look like what people think they are supposed to look like,” says Amy Wilson of Frankfort. She and husband Dave first saw Tylk’s work at a Frankfort Business Exposition and began a collection that now numbers 13.
The Wilsons own the Trolley Barn and invited Tylk to display his skills (at no charge for the space where he paints and shows his work) among its shops, eateries and antique dealers.
“As an artist, he is versatile. His color is bold and he’s not afraid to use it,” says Amy Wilson, whose works by Tylk include family portraits, a rendering of her husband’s ’55 Chevy and reproductions of several masterpieces, including a John Singer Sargent that she says “looks better than the Sargent painting.”
Tylk says portraits are his favorite commissions because of the emotional connection. “A portrait means something special to the person I’m doing it for, whether it’s a family grouping, the family home or a pet,” he says.
Animal portraiture may conjure up images of an estate and of the master’s hunting dogs or prize-winning show animals. Although Tylk has painted these, he also has captured the more mundane critters: dogs, cats, birds and an occasional horse. His most unusual subject was a sheep, a 4-H winner. An 18-by-24-inch portrait, in either oils or pastels, costs $500.
“When John talked about his work, I thought it was a nice idea, but I couldn’t imagine having a portrait of a pet. We don’t have portraits of our children,” says Maureen Benedetti of Frankfort, a member with Tylk of the Leads Club, a business networking group.
After seeing Tylk’s work, she commissioned a chalk drawing of the family’s soft-coated wheaten terrier, Lladro, as a Christmas gift for her husband, Ron.
“It’s pretty incredible. The picture is so lifelike,” she says. “John has captured her personality, the look in Lladro’s eyes.”
“For the artist, witnessing that emotional connection is like getting paid all over again,” Tylk says of such compliments.
Lladro made the connection herself as Tylk pulled the finished portrait from a crate. “The dog did a double-take. She stopped and actually looked at herself,” Tylk says.
“This portrait will be passed on. It’s an heirloom,” says Benedetti, whose plans for Tylk include a family portrait as well as one of a deceased cocker spaniel.
Tylk works from photographs. If possible, he meets with the pet and family and shoots his own pictures, getting a variety of angles and a take on the animal’s personality.
Although some owners prefer an aristocratic pose, others choose a look that triggers emotions, maybe the way a dog cocks his ears, Tylk explains.
“Sometimes, I’ll `Frankenstein’ it,” he says, “combining different photos of the head and body to make it more complimentary and give the client exactly what they want.”
Some clients will request a preliminary pencil sketch, but most will review photos with Tylk and decide on poses. Generally, he’ll spend 20 to 30 hours on a portrait, though “sometimes, I’ll get lucky,” he says, “and do the picture just the way I want in 10 to 15 hours.”
When Tylk began, he traveled the art show circuit but found that people wanted a portrait completed immediately, unaware of the time involved. Now he displays at the White Street Gallery in the Trolley Barn and the Talisman Gallery in Bartlesville, Okla. (a number of his former art professors display their works at the latter gallery and provided a connection there for Tylk). He also does an occasional art show.
Sue Lotysz, owner of the White Street Gallery, says, “John’s portraits of animals and people are fabulous. He really captures their character.”
She praises Tylk’s portrait of her 11-year-old daughter Alecia in the simplest terms: “It’s my daughter,” she says. Another is in the works for her son Chris, 13.
Both Lotysz children take art lessons from Tylk, who is a patient teacher, Lotysz said. He instructs about 12 children and adults at his home studio and teaches classes that range from 7 to 25 students through the Frankfort, Frankfort Square and Mokena Park Districts.
“John’s work is excellent. He takes his time and he follows up,” says Joe Butera, owner of Joe Butera Foods in Frankfort. Tylk met Butera while shopping in his store, and Butera commissioned a family portrait and another of himself, a son and cousin on a hunting expedition. Butera is collecting photos of his home town in Sicily for a future assignment.
But before Tylk began amassing students and patrons of the arts, he faced “a big hour decision and a turning point,” he says.
Tylk had earned a degree in radio and TV in the 1970s from the University of Illinois at Chicago but, unable to find a job in his field, worked for a grocery chain and took private art lessons for enjoyment.
“That was my first formal art education,” he says.
At age 40, he assembled his portfolio and applied for admission to the American Academy of Art in Chicago in 1984. Tylk recalls being quite impressed with his own work, a pride quickly deflated when he was accepted but told he had to start with the fundamentals.
“Here I was back in school, sitting with 18-year-olds. I saw other students going up two stairs at a time while I was struggling,” he says.
He documented his feelings in a makeshift diary kept in the margins of his sketchbook, in one spot writing, “Oh, my God, what have I done?” when the full impact of his career change hit him. He had quit a full-time job, signed up for school loans and committed to a four-year program that took him six years to complete by attending class full and part time.
“Thank God, I had a family who backed me up,” Tylk says, noting especially the help of his brother Mike of Steger, with whom he lived during his years at the academy.
He credits a mentor, Bill Parks, with encouraging him to persevere. Now semi-retired, Parks, a life drawing instructor at the academy, had been an older student and understood Tylk’s frustrations. Tylk recalls, “I’d ask Bill, `When am I going to get better?’ He’d laugh and respond, `I hear this from my students all the time. We all learn at different levels.’ “
According to Tylk, the hardest part is visualizing the finished product.
“A painting needs two artists,” he says, “one to do the painting and one to tap you on the shoulder and tell you it’s done.”
It has been a busy few years since graduation in 1990. One year later, he married Ida Varriale, an accountant.
“It’s a blend of talents–an accountant and an artist,” he says, recalling her dismay when he presented her with two paper bags of receipts at tax time.
“I’m the housemeister here,” he says, and his domain includes cleaning and cooking duties, balanced against at least five hours a day at the easel. “I like to think I work all day,” he adds, calculating the time required for research, client contacts and lessons.
Tylk also is one of three artists working on a mural project in Frankfort School District 157C. He has done illustrations for Dog world magazine. He also is close to completing a novel. He was encouraged by a longtime correspondence with the late Richard Condon, author of a number of books including “The Manchurian Candidate.”
(Condon and Tylk had a correspondence that began with a fan letter, and Tylk eventually became a member of Condon’s International Confederation of Book Actors, a collection of people whose names and likenesses were appropriated for minor characters in Condon’s books. A John Tylk appears in Condon’s last work, “Prizzi’s Honor.”)
And he’s two-thirds into his dream project, a trilogy of Vietnam War scenes that are reminiscent of well-known religious art, including Michelangelo’s “Pieta” and a Renaissance painting of the ascension of Christ. The first two pencil sketches are completed, and he’s still deciding the third element of the trilogy. Although he didn’t serve in Vietnam, Tylk is drawn to images of the war and is committed to completing the paintings and locating funding to create prints. He’s working on the project with the encouragement of the Lansing Veterans Memorial Foundation and plans to donate a portion of the proceeds to veterans’ groups.
Throughout all his work, Tylk keeps the encouraging words of his mentor, Parks, displayed prominently in his studio as a reminder to himself and his students of what’s important. A handwritten card tacked to a shelf adjacent to his easel reads: “Quality is one of the little things that masterpieces are made of.”
Tylk also points out a worn handwritten copy of a question posed by author Dashiell Hammett, one that Tylk says hit him hard and put his life in perspective: “Have you let it all run past you and frittered your life away?”
Tylk answers with a resounding “no.”
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For more information on Tylk’s works, call 815-469-4310.
The Pastel Passion show will be held at the Fine Arts Gallery, Triton College, 2000 5th Ave., River Grove, from noon to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday through March 21.
